V-P poll result: Better than expected, says BJP; Congress sees moral victory

The Opposition, till Monday evening, had been expecting up to 324 votes, with some support beyond their allies. However, as the voting began on Tuesday, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh declared that all 315 MPs of the Opposition had arrived to vote for Reddy. When the counting finished, Reddy got 15 votes less than claimed.

Fifteen votes were declared invalid, but there was no clarity as to which side of the political divide these votes came from.

A BJP leader said while the NDA numbers were 427, the ruling alliance had hoped to reach a maximum of 440-444 votes, after adding the 11 of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP and some Independent MPs and very small parties that they expected would vote for them.

“However, we breached our best expectations by eight to 12 votes at 452. This may mean we also got votes of conscience from some MPs in the Opposition. However, we can say things with certainty only after a thorough analysis of the results,” the BJP leader said.

Congress media department head Ramesh had a completely different interpretation. He said, “The  Opposition stood united for the Vice-Presidential election. Its performance has undeniably been most respectable. Its joint candidate Justice (retd) B Sudershan Reddy secured 40% of the vote. In 2022, the Opposition had received 26% of the vote in the Vice-Presidential elections. The BJP’s arithmetical victory is really both a moral and political defeat. The ideological battle continues undiminished.”

The latest V-P election comes a year after the Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP secured 240 seats, down from 303 in 2019 parliamentary polls. The NDA as a whole secured 294 seats, while the INDIA bloc gained more than 100 to reach 234.

The Congress’s Lok Sabha tally went up from 52 in 2019 to 99 in 2024.

There may not be any direct comparison between the two Vice-Presidential elections – 2022 and 2025 — as the composition of Parliament, in particular the Lok Sabha, has changed between the two polls.

CPI MP P Sandosh Kumar said the results and the possibility of cross-voting should evoke serious introspection within the Opposition parties. “Parties should not cheat people and do what they say in public. The number of votes to both candidates is in a way strange and we need to introspect,” said Kumar.

There was also suspicion within the Opposition camp that some MPs from Jharkhand and Maharashtra, where Radhakrishnan has held post of Governor, may have cross voted. Some Opposition members also suspected a party with several non-political MPs to have cross-voted in Tuesday’s election.

On the side of the government, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took to X to congratulate Radhakrishnan, saying his sagacity and “profound knowledge of administration would bring out the best in our Parliamentary democracy to serve the marginalised”.

“The several phases of outreach to MPs across party lines, led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah, have more than paid off,” a source in the BJP said.

“Both leaders were engaged in the outreach till as recently as the weekend — especially the Home Minister; this appears to have convinced many members, who were on the fence about support to Radhakrishnan-ji, in the run-up to the elections on Tuesday.”

Party sources said Rajnath Singh had been instrumental in reaching out to the YSRCP.

TMC Rajya Sabha member Sagarika Ghose told The Indian Express that the V-P elections was a showcase of a “united Opposition”. “We were united in the struggle for democracy and constitutional values… The result is better than the last two elections, and it shows the power of the united Opposition,” said Ghose.